Can You Resistance-Train Your Brain?

If a study published in the January 2011 issue of Psychiatry Research is to be believed, the answer to that headline is a definite maybe. Researchers found that subjects who practiced mindful meditation — a Buddhism-based technique that came to the United States in the 1970s — for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks experienced changes in gray-matter density in the parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. A lot more research is needed, but scientists postulate that meditators would be more likely to help those in need, as well as be more compassionate. And while that’s not nearly as badass as being able to bench 350, it just might make your life — and the lives of those around you — even better.